Falling in Love with Luzon Amidst Its Pitfalls

Perfection is nothing but an idea, to which everyone aims to be; yet the most genius of them all ends up imperfect at the end. Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines, with its magnanimity among other islands in the country may seem to cater everything: From dive sites, pristine beaches, remote islets, magnificent mountains and volcanoes, highly urbanized areas, and to the far rural reaches. Yet seemingly almost perfect with its diversity, there still lies some of its ugly reality. The island may fall short on some aspects, but being aware of its imperfections is the key to falling in love with it.

Expeditions Log 2013

2013 has been another record-breaking year not only for Schadow1 Expeditions but for the whole mapping community of the Philippines. The year marked the worldwide record-breaking map updates for the Philippines that took the mapping advocates literally by a storm; to focus on updating the map of the areas stricken by the strongest typhoon recorded in history. It only took a week to reach a million data updates. This is due to a call by the Humanitarian Openstreetmap Team to produce the updated map of the Philippines at a soonest possible time as the mapping data will be used by various institutions to mobilize their relief and rehabilitation efforts to the Philippines.

As for Schadow1 Expeditions, we exceeded our 158 mapping days of 2012 to 195 mapping days this year increasing the mapping contributions of Schadow1 Expeditions to more than double from 123,422 Philippine data modifications of 2012 to a total of 371,034 this year (as of December 8, 2013). We have mapped the country as much as how we have traveled it.

Four Expeditions, Forty Degrees Centigrade, One Country

February 16 is when the country started heating up and cyclones started to diminish within the Philippine Area of Responsibility. Then it was a sign that it is already officially summer. Schadow1 Expeditions covered 4 provinces, including 2 remote islands and 3 mountains. Where my fling is my GPS device, the tracks are my treasures, the roads are my guide, the seas are my comfort, the mountains are my ambitions, and the sands are as many as my memories.

2013 Schadow1 Expeditions Outlook

Reaching out further at 2013

Schadow1 Expeditions is a new blog. In fact, we are only about to turn just 2 months within this week. And so, 2013 will have an outlook of more travels to take, more mountain trails to map and roads and waypoints to cover.

Batulao Slipper Outreach a Success

December 26, 2012

Early dawn just right after Christmas, we have gone to to the streets and headed on to Mt. Batulao to give-away slippers (flipflops) for the youth and young mountain guides of this mountain at the heart of Nasugbu, Batangas that was donated by our generous subscribers, readers and friends.

Batulao is known with young hiking guides and children helping their parents bring up ingredients to their kubo stalls at different locations within the trail to give refreshment and food to mountaineers.